Too Late
by AstraGalactic
Summary: After all he has done, Tony Stark is still the man who has everything, and absolutely nothing that matters, so how can he find the will to fight for the life which is slipping through his fingers when no-one cares?   Iron Man 2 AU
1. Chapter 1

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Everything Tony has been thinking, everything he has been planning for this moment crumbles at the sight before him, and it terrifies him more than his own bomb landing in front of him, more than being operated on while still awake, more than anything they ever did to him in that cave.

All coherence vanishes, and Tony finds himself painfully stumbling through his words, because _"I love you – and I'm dying"_ does not quite cut it. He does not want to force her hand if she believes him on either count and if she does not…he's not sure how he will handle Pepper's anger morphing into disbelief, or worse scorn: "Do you know how short life is…. and if I never got to express…And by the way, this is somewhat revelatory to me, and I don't care….I mean, I care, it would be nice, I'm not expecting you to ….to…. Look, here's what I'm trying to say, I'm just going to say it…"

When Pepper cuts him off to complain about the job he has passed her – and how he makes her life difficult, Tony feels the self-doubt well up within him; he's managed to make a mess of everything in his life – how could he ever be worthy of her reciprocating her feelings?

Then she notices the strawberries he brought her – a peace offering of sorts – and for a second he hopes, until it turns out that it's absolutely the worst thing he could have brought her, and he finds himself wondering if "Irony Man" might have been a better name for him.

Still, he wants to tell her this much before it's too late, he wants to do this right and not make her find out via some posthumous recording, so hope flares anew in him when Pepper says in a significantly calmer tone "I need you…" and leaping at the opportunity, he cuts in:

"I need you too, that's what I'm trying to say."

Pepper finishes her statement: "to leave. Now." and for the first time in his life, Tony cannot think of anything to say to that. He cannot find the strength to salvage his pride by saying something witty, and he's tired of trying for the truth.

The silence is heavy, oppressive, and without another word, Pepper starts packing to leave. As she gets up to walk past him, Tony grabs her wrist, aware that he's begging her to listen. He takes a calming breath then presses ahead; after all, she already probably cannot think any less of him, and there is no-one else there to witness his moment of vulnerability:

"Pepper, please, I l…"

This time it is Pepper who cuts him off, her tone angry:

"Mr. Stark, I don't have time right now for your antics. That will be all.".

She pulls her hand away and storms out, and this time Tony does not try to stop her. He's vaguely aware of Natalie – Natasha actually- looking in at him from the door before it closes, and he vaguely wonders if it is concern or anger on her features, but somehow he cannot bring himself to care.

It almost feels like he is back on his living room sofa, paralyzed by the sonic taser while Stane is ripping out his arc-reactor…. but this is worse, because this time it is his heart that has been ripped out -metaphorically- and this time he does not have a reason to try to save himself.

Eventually SHIELD's goon squad shows up and takes him home, telling him he needs to get to work, but he honestly at this point does not care, and nightfall finds him standing in his wrecked living room staring blankly out at the sea.

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	2. Chapter 2

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It is not until 5 AM next day that Natasha gets the privacy she needs to call her fellow SHIELD agent, and ask Coulson how Tony's work is progressing.

His report is hopeless but not unexpected. Natasha knows she should have barged in to the office thirty seconds earlier – before the conversation had gone that far south. Part of her job description is knowing what each person's greatest weakness is, their Kryptonite, if she is to allow herself a macabre joke about this whole superhero business she is mixed up in.

It had taken Natasha under a minute in their presence to guess that Pepper Potts was Tony Stark's Kryptonite – now she has experimental proof, and wishes that she did not.

Natasha knows that this battle is lost already. Agent Romanov never gives up. Her answer to Coulson before dropping the call is a combination of both:

"Talk to Stark, see if you can get him working using any means necessary. I am going to begin phasing in plan B."

Even as she says it, Natasha hacks into Hammer's mainframe, and downloads a virus that fries most of his electronics. This forces him to take a slot a month later in the EXPO.

Back at the Stark residence, Coulson finds Tony standing and staring out at the ocean. Tony is not drinking, and the agent supposes that is a good thing, until he actually tries talking to the man, and Tony does not even turn around to acknowledge his presence.

Pleas become taunts to the other man's intelligence, eventually they become threats. Finally Coulson gets a response from Tony Stark, but it is not the one he was hoping for. He'd hoped to piss the other man off enough to get him out of this unhealthy depression. Instead Stark shrugs and says in a tone that is so factual it is terrifying:

"You want to try to force me to work? Go ahead, try waterboarding, try electroshock. It so happens: they're effective– but you're wrong if you think you can make me give a crap."

Coulson is still trying to find words with which to answer that when Tony finally spins around to face him, fast enough that by reflex alone the agent's hand rests on his firearm.

Tony picks up the movement because he steps closer, eyes crazed with despair, yelling:

"You want to shoot me, go ahead! you even got a glowing target to aim at. Fact is, **I have** **nothing left to lose**!"

It is not the words that make Coulson give up, it's the look in the other man's eyes. Even in the dim moonlight he can see it, and he knows that like a smartphone run over by a tank, some things are too badly damaged to ever be made operational again.

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	3. Chapter 3

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At 7 AM, Natalie and an even-more furious Pepper are on their way back to Malibu (the desired effect of plan B), and Natasha tries subtly to get Pepper to talk to her former boss one more time, figuring that it cannot make matters any worse, while at best it may be the only thing that can get Tony back to work.

Pepper tells her that she should leave alone what she does not understand, and for all Natasha wants to scream in her face that actually, she understands the present insanity better than Pepper does – and that if she does not want Tony Stark dead in under 24 hours, she had better talk to him – she cannot, because that would mean destroying SHIELD's cover, and that is the one and only one thing she cannot do.

At noon, Coulson is reassigned to New Mexico. Tony does not even turn around when he is informed of the fact.

Yinsen once called him that man who had everything and yet nothing at all. For all the changes he has made in his life, for all his efforts, his blood, sweat, and tears – in the end he still has nothing.

Another SHIELD agent comes by and wordlessly injects him with more Lithium dioxide. He does not bother telling them that it barely has an effect this time, does not bother asking if the dose can be increased. He is dying, and he has no reason to fight it anymore…. but he does not want to die alone, so when they leave, he makes his way down to his shop…. because at least JARVIS is there, and even if the computer cannot really understand death, even if he cannot feel, he is there.

Tony wonders if his AI has evolved to the point of feeling emotions when JARVIS says: "I was hoping you would come down here."

Tony only sighs in response, lying down on the couch, and JARVIS continues, his tone level as always:

"Sir, perhaps it would be prudent to explore other lines of research before your time runs out."

So, even JARVIS realized that Howard Stark was hinting at something. Once, Tony might have wanted to examine how JARVIS had reached the level of understanding needed to figure out the subtext, but after everything, he cannot bring himself to care. Still, the AI is waiting for a response, and Tony is brutally honest, his tone as lifeless as he feels:

"Perhaps, if I cared to live."

He swears he hears a hint of anger in the AI's subdued tone:

"And what about the people who need you?"

Those eight words bring back at full intensity all the pain that has been eating at him, and Tony replies, his voice finally breaking:

"They don't need me – or want me."

JARVIS is silent for an eternity by his standards: forty seconds, then when he speaks again, Tony notices that the computer's tone is shockingly … raw:

"I need you."

This time there is no crushing follow up. Instead DUM-E is there by his side, robotic arm just inches from his face, making the sweetest chirrups ever, and Tony knows that it is the robot's way of saying "Me too."

Finally, Tony sits up, patting Dummy's arm as he does so, and for the first time in what feels like an eternity, he finds himself smiling… because someone does care for him – even if they are machines, it is enough.

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	4. Chapter 4

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Tony revisits the footage he had seen earlier, forcing back the remembered pain that resulted when he decided to learn from the mistakes of the past and not leave the important things unsaid.

When he realizes that his father was hinting at a new element, and that its nuclear structure is hidden in the original EXPO model, Tony goes back to his former office to retrieve it, only to find that it has been packed away. It takes him three hours to have it retrieved.

By 7 PM he is home, working with JARVIS to solve this puzzle, smiling as he holds the holographic model in his hand, even as his heart stutters in his chest.

At 1 AM Tony is given another injection by the new SHIELD agent. It has no effect on the pain that is burning in his chest and making it near impossible to breathe, but right now that does not matter, because Tony has something to live for, and an actual cure within reach. It is not the first time he has had to handle a deadly countdown.

By 5 AM, he is mostly done setting up the experiment, but he cannot see clearly the bubble on the level as he tries to get his accelerator ready, and his bots cannot do it for him, despite all the help they have been. The air feels too thick and just breathing is exhausting. The scanner reads: "BLOOD TOXICITY: 99%". Still, Tony does not panic. Instead he doggedly works on the accelerator, knowing he has to finish it before that number reaches 100%.

Knowing that when his blood toxicity reaches 99.3% he'll be unconscious, and that will not get the accelerator finished, Tony injects himself with a mixture of stimulants that will keep him awake. Being awake is going to be torture at that level of poisoning, but he figures it cannot be worse than heart-surgery while fully conscious.

Half an hour later, with the accelerator almost done, not enough computing resources, and time running out, Tony breathlessly tells JARVIS to use every Stark Industries computer in the world to get the necessary computing power, and as JARVIS completes taking over the massive grid which will only hold for a few moments, for the first time, Tony allows himself to believe that he will win over death again.

Twenty seconds later the low-grade constant shivers that have been running through Tony's body transition into violent convulsions, and he collapses to the floor. The pain coursing through every nerve in his body is worse than anything he has ever endured, worse than the surgery, worse than the shrapnel eating into his heart without the arc-reactor there to protect it, worse than broken bones, lacerated flesh, and deep burns.

He fights it for as long as he can, but in the end all he can do is scream in agony, as wave after wave hits, until he is too exhausted to scream anymore, and his body thrashes against the cold cement.

It is too late, JARVIS knows it… even DUM-E knows it, as evidenced by the fact the bot arrives with a syringe of morphine, and actually manages to give Tony the intravenous injection, despite his convulsions. It does nothing to lessen the pain, though, and all JARVIS can do in the end is say: "I'm so… sorry."

There is enough hesitance in the AI's tone that Tony knows JARVIS does not really know what to do, and enough raw pain that he fights to draw a deep enough breath to respond, finally gasping out:

"No, JARVIS….Thank you… for being there …. when I needed you ….most…."

Another shot of morphine does nothing, and the keening sound that comes from DUM-E who realizes now that he can do nothing is truly heartbreaking. Tony blindly moves his left hand to touch the robotic claw, gasping out: "You too, DUM-E…"

When the claw grasps his shaking wrist hard enough to bruise, Tony only smiles through the agony, grateful for the physical presence beside him, even if the robot's desperate grip is too tight.

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	5. Chapter 5

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Pepper's morning has already been hell, having to field furious calls from practically every division of every branch of Stark International, inquiring why all the computers went offline for a few minutes near 5:30 AM. To make things worse, some conscientious workers through it was a terrorist attack, and called it in, leaving Pepper to deal with every three-letter agency in existence.

By the time she reaches Tony's house, knowing that he's the only one who could have done this, she is so angry that he's only digging both of them deeper into the grave, that she ignores JARVIS's pleas, ignores the completely weird fact that the computer sounds … depressed, and walks into the shop yelling:

"Mr. Stark, there had better be a good explanation for why you sabotaged your own company this…."

She is shocked into silence as she walks around the contraption and comes face to face with Tony, looking worse than any living being should ever look.

All she can gasp out is: "Oh, Tony", as she drops to her knees beside him, hands shaking so hard she cannot dial, and finds herself begging JARVIS to call an ambulance. There is strangely no reply, but before she can ask again, Tony speaks, his voice little more than a ragged gasp:

"No… ambulance…. cannot help."

JARVIS fills in from there, telling Pepper about the Palladium poisoning, about the alternative Tony had found, but that he hadn't enough time to create it.

Suddenly everything clicks into place for Pepper: Tony's speech about legacy at the Expo, driving his own race-car, his wanting to go to Venice with her, his birthday party….oh, god, and when he'd shown up the previous morning trying to tell her….. It is too much to take, and all Pepper can do is sink to the floor, sobbing while she cradles Tony's head in her hands.

The sight is almost unbearable; Tony is pale, drenched in sweat, shaking uncontrollably, and choking on every gasp of air. The bluish cast of his lips tells her it is too late - his heart is failing, but she cannot bear it, cannot bear the thought of him slipping away from life, from her, so hoping desperately with nothing to hope for, she begs, looking at the device assembled around them, then back to Tony:

"How do I make this work?"

Tony manages the strength to shake his head, gasping out:

"Can't… not …. ready."

Tenacious as always, and desperate, her hands subtly tighten, and she asks again, pleading as tears fall freely from her eyes:

"What do I do?"

Tony actually manages a pained smile at her determination, knowing that he cannot try to talk her through this. Incomplete as the accelerator is, trying to run it would kill her, and neither he nor JARVIS will allow it. Instead he pleads with her:

"Stay …with …me … please."

And finally she gives up hoping for the impossible, because she lies down propped up on one elbow by his side on the cold floor, cradling his weakened form close to hers, the tears flowing faster as she feels how cold he is.

Tony's right hand shakes uncontrollably as he manages to lift it and dry her tears, whispering between pained gasps:

"Don't... cry… You're … beautiful…. when you …smile."

She only cries harder when his hand drops, and she cups his cheek with her free hand, saying over and over:

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry."

Tony cuts her off, with more force than imaginable for a dying man:

"No…I'm sorry…. for not…telling you…. the truth…..I thought…..it would…. make it …. easier."

He takes a few more anguished gasps, then continues with:

"Thank you…. for getting ….me… through the… worst times…of my life… for everything…. you've done."

Pepper seems like she is about to argue, to say that she was not there for him this time, but Tony does not want her to hurt, so as always, he deflects it, saying instead:

"Tell … Rhodey…I'm sorry… and I'm… not … angry."

Tony's body convulses with a sudden crushing pain in his chest that only builds with each coming second, and he knows this is the end, his heart is giving out finally…. and he still has never told her what mattered most, so he fights for one last breath, managing finally to whisper, as he fights the blackness that reaches for him:

"You deserve better….but I wanted you to know… I love you."

Pepper waits for his next breath, paralyzed by terror as the trembling stops, only knowing when he does not breathe again after what has felt like an eternity, and the robot that is still holding tightly to his other wrist leaves the most mournful keening sound she has ever heard, that it is too late, and though Tony's eyes are still open and looking into hers, he will never hear her reply.

"I love you" she whispers as she closes his eyes with her lips.

The pain is too much to take, and Pepper leaves a heart-rending scream of her own: "I love you" . It's pointless, no matter how loud she screams, Tony will never hear her.

It is only when the lights suddenly go out that she calls for JARVIS, and his voice is grainy as he replies:

"Farewell, Miss Potts." that Pepper realizes that he has erased himself – or suffered a permanent emotional breakdown.

Pepper collapses to the floor, weeping freely for Tony, for the life he should have had that slipped from between his fingers, for herself knowing she lost the one person in her life she loved, for JARVIS and DUM-E who apparently loved Tony in their own way…. and most of all, because she was too late, and Tony never got to know that she loved him too.

Hours later, it takes almost as many people to pry Pepper from Tony's body as it does to pry the completely unresponsive robotic claw from his wrist…. and Pepper realizes that JARVIS was not the only one who self-destructed.

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	6. Chapter 6

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It is a week later that they have Tony's funeral, and it is then that Tony's lawyers are finally able to get in contact with her and tell her the contents of Tony's will.

He had willed everything to her, Rhodey, and Happy. She is not surprised, but she still breaks down crying when she reads the last lines of a letter Tony had written to her:

"_I know it sounds odd, but I want you to destroy everything I have built, and all the research in my shop. I don't want what I have created to end up hurting people. _

_Please take care of JARVIS and the bots for me. I'm not sure if he understands death, but aside from you, he has been the most constant presence in my life. Please be patient with DUM-E, he really does try._

_I want you to have the arc-reactor, no matter what, so that you know you always have my heart._

_Love, Tony."_

When she goes to Tony's house, she finds teams trying to discretely break the security to his shop, and drives them away with all the fury of a wounded lioness in her den.

Between keeping his wishes and fending off inquiries from every imaginable source, she is too busy to grieve in the daytime, but at night she finds herself curled up on the couch in his shop, the arc-reactor the only light in the lonely room.

The press thinks it was an EMP that destroyed DUM-E and JARVIS, but Pepper knows better…. she does not correct them though. Tony had managed to create actual life within his machines, and if they know it will be just one more reason for them to try to bring JARVIS back. Perhaps some secrets are best taken to the grave.

Another week passes, and Pepper knows she has to find a way to destroy everything. As long as this exists, the government will never stop trying to find legal loopholes – and experience tells her sooner or later they will win.

If JARVIS were still here, everything might be different, but as things are, Pepper finds herself wishing for a giant explosion that will take this place off the map. She does not know how to make it happen.

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	7. Chapter 7

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A month after Tony's death, Hammer has his weapons presentation, and Rhodey inside what they have termed the VTRB is having a very hard time not using his Gattling-gun to blow Hammer to shreds when even now – now that Tony is…. dead…. Hammer is still trampling Tony's legacy.

Then suddenly the gun snaps forward, and Rhodey finds that he is in the middle of what had to have been Tony's worst nightmare.

The drones are killing indiscriminately, but they do not have the best aim. Unfortunately, though weaponized by Hammer, the VTRB is still at base Tony's Mark II, and its aim is perfect.

Rhodey knows it will only make things worse, and probably so does General Newcomb, but the military calls in tanks that start shooting at the drones – and him, and by the end of the day, most of the casualties are US soldiers.

No-one is sure exactly what happens at the end but suddenly the drones all collapse, and suddenly Rhodey can control the suit again.

Back at the hangar, when they finally get a bruised and battered Rhodes out of the VTRB, they apologize that they might have killed him in the process of trying to stop the VTRB, but he's not angry at all. In truth, he figures it would have served him right if he dies in the suit he stole from his best friend the last time they met, and if blowing him to hell was necessary for saving civilians, so be it.

It is only when they ask him to pledge to a cover story, and bring in Hammer to discuss further drone-production, as well PR specialists to decide how to pitch their cover-story so the shell-shocked American public is willing to go with the use of drones and battlesuits that Rhodes blows up. He's actually yelling, not giving a crap that it's to a general:

"Are you crazy? After what you saw today, you want to take that sort of chance again? What happened the next time some lunatic hacks your system? You think terrorists were dangerous flying commercial jets? How about one of these?"

They dismiss his concerns, telling him that he has PTSD, and as they ship him out the door with a temporary leave of absence and orders to see a therapist, all Rhodey can think to himself is that Tony was right…. and in that moment, more than ever he hates himself for his betrayal.

Back home, all Rhodey wants to do is get drunk, but he holds back, instead digging up the album of photos with him and Tony and Pepper that has become too painful to see, looking through them.

Him and Tony at MIT…. him, Tony, and Pepper at various functions…. A grainy still taken by the chopper's camera of a battered bleeding Tony leaning against him in a desert in Afghanistan. It's at the last photo that Rhodey breaks; it's a picture snapped by JARVIS of both of them in suits – Tony in the Mark IV, and Rhodey in the Mark II. It had been his first successful flight, and both he and Tony were back in Tony's shop, standing side by side, smiling.

He's been wounded in battle before, watched friends die, known the pain of Tony being captured by terrorists and being unable to find him. Nothing compares to the pain of looking through those photos, especially the last, because Tony had taught him to operate the suit, Tony had trusted him… and he had betrayed Tony, by taking the suit to the military, at the time Tony least needed it.

"I'm sorry", he whispers to the Tony that smiles back at him in the photo…. and it is too late, because Tony will never hear it.

Finally he musters the courage to open the letter Tony had written for him, and it is on the last line that it becomes too much to bear:

"_Thanks for everything, for being the only person to hang out with me at MIT, for being my best friend, for not giving up on me when the military stopped the official search._

_I want you to have the Mark II, just so you know, I upgraded the armor and capabilities so it's as good as the Mark IV, just without the red and gold. Sorry buddy, find your own color scheme._

_I trust you._

_Love, Tony."_

Alone in a world that seems to have become too silent without Tony Stark in it, the tears fall, and for the first time, Rhodey allows himself to truly grieve for his lost friend.

Eventually he falls asleep, exhausted after a long day and all the sorrow he had been bottling up for so very long, but when he wakes up, the picture is still there in front of him, and he looks a little closer at Tony's expression. By then, Tony must have known he was dying. Was that why he taught Rhodey how to operate the suit?

Pepper had told him that Tony wanted him to know he was sorry, and that he was not angry at him. That knowledge hurts even deeper; Tony had forgiven him while on his deathbed, and he was too busy discussing weaponization of Tony's stolen suit with Justin Hammer to be there.

He looks again at the photo, at Tony's expression, the smile there is not blinding, but it is genuine, and Tony's words echo in his mind: "I trust you."

Newfound determination fills Rhodey, and he promises that even if Tony is not there to see it, he will earn that trust.

Ten minutes later, he has already arranged everything with Pepper.

He uses his leave to help Pepper pack what she wants to keep from Tony's house –and even some of the things that right now hurt too much to look at.

Then one night he sneaks his pickup into the base and retrieves the VTRB, along with enough explosives to level a small town. He takes everything back to Tony's place, and contemplates letting the VTRB be destroyed also, until he reminds himself that Tony wanted him to be there to protect the people he could not , and with this in mind, he sets to work.

It's slow-going without JARVIS, but Rhodey learned a lot from Tony those years at MIT, and with Pepper's help, over the course of three days, he's managed to strip out most of the Hammer-tech, install a few extra of Tony's specialized weapons, and return the suit mostly to what Tony had built and envisioned him using. He's taken a lot by the time he is done, both armament and tools he will need to repair the suit, as well as the two still-living bots, but it feels right this time, because this time, it is what Tony would have wanted.

Then time is up, the military notices the VTRB is missing, and the first thing they do is arrive on the PCH with a convoy of tanks to get another suit to work with, legality be damned.

Before they are close enough to be affected one way or the other, the entire mansion goes up in flames, and the explosion is visible in the darkness even from the isolated seaside cliff where Rhodey is standing, still dressed in the reborn Mark II, holding Pepper close as she weeps bitterly.

It hurts like hell – as if that action has finally made them accept that Tony is gone, and is never coming back – but it was necessary, necessary to make sure that Tony's last wishes were fulfilled, and as Pepper cries in his metal-clad arms, cradling close to her the arc-reactor that she never seems to let go of these days, he hopes that now that she does not have to guard a place that holds so many memories – the place Tony died, she can begin to heal.

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	8. Chapter 8

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The next day, a furious General is screaming in Rhodey's face about stolen property, a house reduced to rubble so thoroughly nothing usable is left, and the missing VTRB, and threatening him with a court-martial – and Rhodey coolly denies anything to do with it.

A week later, they can prove nothing, but they are still waving threats in Rhodey's face should their suspicions about his involvement be proven true. He answers with threats of his own: He threatens to leak to the public that they were trying to steal from Tony's house without a government order, that Justin Hammer was aiding and abetting a known terrorist, and the truth behind their cover-story.

It is a high-price gamble, and Rhodey knows that he really cannot do damage to the brass, but he can destroy their credibility on his way down, and that is enough to make them leave him alone in the end.

He finds that with enough money (and he's inherited more than enough to do this for several lifetimes) even something as noticeable as the Mark II can be hidden, and the fact that he's trampling on the authority of the military and government strangely does not bother him. He finally knows what he needs to do, and to quote Tony, in one of those rare unguarded moments that Pepper has since shared with him: _he knows in his heart it's right._

His heart still aches when he thinks of Tony, and he admits silently: _"You were right, Tony. I know that now…. I wish I'd trusted you more when I could have made you happy… but it is too late."_

A month later, he resigns his commission in the military, finding that being an anonymous superhero is a full-time responsibility.

The same day, Pepper, as CEO of Stark Industries is having a press conference, and when one reporter asks if now that Tony Stark is dead, SI will resume weapons manufacturing, she shoots him down with such brutally unrepentant swift authority, it rivals Tony Stark's announcement to the world that he was closing SI's weapons-manufacturing division.

When Pepper and Rhodey meet for dinner, finding in each other's company some solace from the loss they share, Rhodey cannot help but look at them now – at where they are and who they are – and wonder if perhaps for as long as they live, Tony Stark never will be truly gone, because it seems like a piece of him has stayed with each of them.

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A/N:

1) I love happy endings (especially with Tony and Pepper together), but this is what happens when you listen to Breaking Benjamin's Anthem of the Angels for too long, after re-watching Iron Man 2.

2) For anyone who wonders, according to the book, when Tony makes his new element it was a pretty close call - since when Tony has JARVIS take over all the SI computers (that does happen in the book), he figures Pepper will be pissed, but by the time she comes over to yell at him, if his experiment does not work, she will be having to make funeral arangements instead.

So I figure if anything had slowed him down, it would have been too late for him.

In my opinion, Natasha had absolutely excellent timing, more than once, but today I found myself wondering what could have happened if she did not barge into the office when she did.

3) I know I should be updating my other stories, but I just had to write this down. I should have updates for the others by tomorrow.

4) A bit of shameless self-promotion (well, not really) If anyone out there thinks, like me, that Tony is an incredibly complex character who is misunderstood a lot (or just likes alot of angsty introspection with an happy ending when I finish it) you should check out my fic: **"Stark Realizations". ** Yes, the name is after Tony Stark.

It's on the Thor movie archive because it's about Loki's emotional growth from observing Tony struggle through life, but it's really Tony's story through and through. Easiest to just find it via my profile.


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